Film Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home
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I held off on writing this for a bit because sometimes a good night of sleep can help make things clear. And naturally since we are at the Monday after premiere, I am going to go into specifics about Spider-Man: No Way Home and why it’s a bad film.
Spider-Man: No Way Home truthfully is 2/3 of a movie about a kid making incredibly dumb decisions aided by a man and the in spite of who should know better and 1/3 of a movie about what it really means to be Spider-man.
What I found so frustrating about this movie is Marvel has actually done a sterling job of characters making decisions wholly in their self-interest. I love how Steve Rogers is incredibly selfish in his trilogy, it’s both integral to his superhero ability and his fatal flaw. In this film, Peter’s desire to fix his friends life by casting a spell is in line with other foolish decisions characters have made. However, the movie has Doctor Strange rightfully call him out on it after they fail the first time (I can’t believe he even entertained Peter long enough to let him change the spell once let alone six times). More perplexing is Spidey’s choice to stop Doctor Strange sending the villains back.
Holland’s Spider-Man has absolutely no connection to these characters, none of them exist in his universe in any capacity, and his dogged hope of trying to fix/cure them smacked of a hubris that we’ve never seen out of Peter before. It was maddening to watch people enable this storyline or encourage him to fix them. Do I think this was brought on by guilt of having to kill Mysterio? Certainly, but not adequate enough to make everyone around him act the way they did. Aunt May especially, given what happens to her, is out of her mind telling this child that he should take it upon himself to fix them. I was left cold by her choice and even colder by her ultimate fate.
This sort of well meaning, but poorly executed approach leads what could be interesting, to feel like nothing but fan service that doesn’t do anything worthwhile for the previous stories or this one. Not a single thing about Peter Parker’s quest to help them, helps make those villain’s stories any more compelling. It’s truly thrilling to see Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina chew the scenery, but they were great the first time. Also, Electro and Dr. Connors are still terrible, just like they were in the Garfield films. I didn’t get anything new from those characters or anything revelatory about Holland’s Peter. He ultimately makes a big sacrifice to erase everyone’s memory of him but after so much damage and destruction, and with literally no other choice, he makes it.
Also, there’s a balance issue here. While it is fun to see Ned and MJ in the superhero mess, in a world that he knows Avengers and heroes big and small, he didn’t want to call any of them? Or take counsel in anyone other than a wizard? Especially considering he’s got a good lawyer (Matt Murdock), the screenwriters didn’t want Daredevil in on the fight?
Most of these issues move to the side once the final third of the movie kicks in aka when the cameos you expect due to previous movie villains appearing. Spider-Man has always enraptured the imagination for a specific set of reasons, just like any other successful superhero. Having the previous two Spider-Men enter the movie ,and provide a mentorship that the character desperately needed, brought the movie an emotional resonance it needed. In this final third we get the promise of what it means to have a multiverse. Watching Holland take solace in the other two telling him their stories and the team work in their fighting was lovely. The moment that got to me the most was Andrew Garfield’s Peter catching MJ, allowing him a great acting moment and also a genuine way to react to a previous story. It’s just too bad the rest of the movie couldn’t match this level of care for the rest of the film.
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6 thoughts on “Film Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home”
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Learn how to just enjoy a movie for what it is. Must be sad having to view a film from the lens that you do.
I really don’t think you critics watch the films or maybe you watch them from a critical point of view instead of just enjoying the film placed in front of you. My first issue with your critique is that you say Steve Rodger’s is selfish, what selfish person do you know sacrifices their own to save the world, then destroyed an organization that he worked for blindly that was plotting on killing billions, the only selfish act he has made was living his life with Peggy after returning the Infinity stones. Tom Hollands Spider-Man has always tried to do the right thing even saving villains lives Vulture in Homecoming. I personally don’t believe Mysterio is dead but Spider-Man didn’t kill him because that isn’t in his which why Toby McGuires Spider-Man prevented him from take Green Goblins life which would have undone the death of Aunt May which I’m not sure what you were actually calling fan service in this film people just say fan service and don’t really explain what part they think exactly was fan service. Aunt May dying definitely wasn’t I don’t know any fan that wanted that to happen but what’s did come from her death is the famous saying “with great power, comes great responsibility.” Which means regardless if he has a relationship with the villains or not he finds out they die at the hands of Spider-Man and it’s that child like optimism that leads him to want fix them instead going back to suffer their same fate. So all your complaints for this film seem unwarranted and they are your opinions it just seems like you need to watch this movie another time.
People’s opinions on films don’t need to be warranted. That’s the great thing about freedom of speech and press.
Lol, get over yourself
I 100% agree with this and also panned this film. Even by the standards of comic books this is about characters making staggeringly stupid decisions which I am supposed to be supportive. That makes the film seem like a direct assault on MY intelligence.
i have been searching for a bad review since i saw the movie. I was very disappointed with the movie but when i checked the reviews and everyone was calling it the best marvel movie ever so i rewatched it i still thought that the plot wasnt adequate